No Profiteering in a Pandemic
Pharmaceuticals have long been known for their marked-up drug prices that prevent equitable access. More than ever before, due to COVID-19, the topic of equitable access on a global level is critical. This was the focus of the second keynote speaker in this year’s Global Health Learning Symposium speaker series where Leena Menghaney explores this in her talk: No profiteering in a Pandemic. Leena Meghaney, a lawyer and the South-Asia Head for MSF’s Access Campaign, has expertise in public health, innovation, and intellectual property.
In her talk, Menghaney addressed the history of the movement toward access to affordable treatment that was heavily propelled during the 1990s and especially at the peak of HIV/AIDs awareness. She discussed some of the colonial legacies that have persisted to impact the way pharmaceuticals function as a separate private market that profits off of the already vulnerable. Though we have come a long way since the 1990s in terms of addressing inequity in access, COVID-19 has proven that there is still a stark discrepancy. In fact, as reported by Dr. Tedros from the WHO “more than 800 million vaccine doses have been administered globally but over 83% have gone to high-income or upper middle-income countries, while low-income countries have received just 0.2%”.
The question is, what are the solutions to addressing discrepancy in pharmaceutical access?
Menghaney highlighted solutions with a focus on the current global pandemic:
1. Increasing scale up and diversification of manufacturing capacity of COVID-19 medical products, thereby increasing the number of suppliers, creating competition in the market, which ultimately creates access to low-cost generic medications and vaccines.
2. Draft resolution on strengthening local production of medicines and other health technology at the World Health Assembly, thereby increasing local production and distribution.
3. Proposal of waiver of intellectual property barriers for COVID-19 at the World Trade Organization, thereby allowing the sharing of information on production of vaccines.
This webinar is the first of 5 in a series, Global Health Speaker Series, which forms part of the Master of Science in Global Health program’s global health symposium. Stay tuned for recordings of webinars that will be posted in the coming weeks.
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